Yeol Eum Son plays Beethoven
Usher Hall 8/5/25
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Maxim Emelyanychev conductor, Yeol Eum Son piano
Anna Dennis soprano, Katie Bray mezzo-soprano, Anthony Gregory tenor, Neal Davies bass-baritone
SCO Chorus, Gregory Batsleer chorus director
Maxim Emelyanychev conducts the last two concerts of the season, both in the Usher Hall, which tonight hosts a large and enthusiastic audience. These include some US tourists, so that I hear about the new American pope a few minutes after those in St Peter’s Square, entirely appropriate for a concert which includes the fervent expressions of belief heard in the Nelson Mass. The stage is well-filled too with a sixty-strong orchestra for the first work Brahms ‘Variations on a theme by Haydn (St Anthony Chorale)’. Stephanie Gonley is in the leader’s chair and Nikita Naumov returns as guest principal bass.
David Kettle in his thorough programme notes unravels the work’s origins to find not a chorale by Haydn, but an anonymous tune, possible reissued by a 19th century publisher under Haydn’s name. However what we are left with is something very pleasing, an introduction and finale with eight short variations on a memorable theme, a pastiche of baroque style but played with the instrumental range of a later nineteenth century orchestra. Maxim Emelyanychev adds another twist to this performance by choosing authentic brass instruments – four horns and three trumpets. It proves a splendid opener to this concert, which seems poised on the brink between baroque and classical styles. There’s plenty of variety in the other winds with Adam Richardson on piccolo and Alison Green on contrabassoon, often playing at the same time, adding interest to the upper and lower notes. And the timpani is enhanced by Colin Hyson playing a triangle and possibly bells during the dramatic finale.
Many in the audience have come specifically to hear Yeol Eum Son, the South Korean pianist, who, despite her youthful appearance, is now 39, continuing to gather brilliant reviews all over the world. I heard her in the Usher Hall in December 2022, playing Mozart’s last piano concerto: I thought it a brilliant performance of the first two movements but lacking in humour in the last movement. Tonight she’s playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor. As many of you will be aware, the SCO’s series of website essays (also written by David Kettle) about this season’s works are an invaluable resource, and I recommend ‘Beethoven and the key of C minor’. The composer’s personal tragedies – he was already becoming aware of his deafness – may be linked to the defiant mood often expressed in the C minor key, also a favourite of Mozart in his darker works, and the one Beethoven later memorably used for his fifth symphony.
The long orchestral introduction, exploratory at first, builds up twice to a stern tutti explosion, rounding off the section with some ‘final’ chords. The piano picks up quietly on the seven-note repeated motif, and is soon responding to the orchestra with repetitions and elaborations. Yeol Eum Son is in her element during this hectic to and fro, just as she is in the quieter section with woodwind accompaniment and in a brief passages with horns. Her lengthy cadenza moves through a variety of moods from lyrical to defiant, in a brilliant display of energy and precision, before a shower of arpeggios and runs cues the orchestra’s return. The movement ends with the soloist and orchestra in triumphant unison
She isn’t afraid to take the largo second movement very slowly. The piano develops the theme before the orchestra builds on the delicate phrasing in the woodwinds accompanied by cellos. Yeol Eum Son shows astonishing control here, bringing out the beauties of the score. I wasn’t sure about the note separation – almost staccato – in the simpler melodic passages, but in a long movement, varied choices in phraseology are to be commended. The other musicians watch her attentively, enjoying her solo passages and this movement’s more deliberate, less showy cadenza. The final movement returns us to the C minor key, but there’s little defiance in the perky rondo which gives opportunities for technically brilliant elaborations at high speed. The full orchestra join in with brio. There are some opportunities for call and response with the woodwind before a canon in the strings heralds the piano introduction to the final section. Tonight there’s no lack of humour as Yeol Eum Son clearly enjoys Beethoven’s witty twists near the end. After loud cheers there’s an encore which I don’t recognise, a folk-like melody which explodes into virtuosic variations which coincidentally or not, seems like a nice homage to the Brahms we heard earlier.
The orchestra was reduced in size for the Beethoven, and has got slightly smaller again in Haydn’s Mass in D Minor. Haydn’s original orchestration was very sparse – just strings, brass, percussion and organ -because of straitened circumstances at the Esterhazy Court. Tonight we hear a later version which includes woodwind. The fifty-strong choir are in the organ gallery behind the double-basses and the four soloists take their places centrally in front of the choir. Haydn named the work ‘Missa in angustiis’ (mass in troubled times) to reflect the terror experienced by the Viennese at risk of invasion by the French. We know the work as the ‘Nelson Mass’, and it’s possible that the news of Nelson’s transformational victory at the Battle of the Nile may have reached Vienna before the first performance in 1798. But the nickname didn’t take hold till Horatio Nelson himself and his mistress Emma Hamilton visited Vienna in 1800 where apparently they went to a performance of the Mass and warmly greeted the composer. (A story worth repeating even if untrue!)
The Mass starts with trumpet fanfare and a compact Kyrie, with spirited singing from the choir and Anna Dennis, the soprano soloist soaring above them. Her interaction with the chorus, especially the female voices, is an essential part of the sound, and although there’s always some concern that soloists behind the orchestra won’t be heard, here it obviously contributes to the work’s dynamic, as there’s frequent interplay between the soloists and the choir. The Gloria and the Credo follow, each divided into three sections. The first section of the Gloria begin with Anna Dennis singing Haydn’s bright and catchy melody for ‘Gloria in Excelsis deo’ with the choir responding. She then leads the other soloists, Katie Bray, Anthony Gregory and Neal Davies in a quartet, with the choir repeating the main theme twice. Although the soprano and the bass-baritone both have solos, Katie Bray, the fine mezzo, and the promising young tenor, Anthony Gregory, are mostly heard only in the ensembles. We hear Neal Davies’ solo aria in the middle section, the slow ‘Qui tollis peccata mundi’, with violin and woodwind accompaniment and the male chorus joining in quietly. Neal Davies’s delivery of the words, asking for forgiveness from sins, and of the aria’s beautiful melody, suggesting the ‘troubled times’ of Haydn’s title, is a highlight of this performance. The choir, sympathetic and restrained behind the baritone, now blazes forth again, with the soprano in the original melody, this time sung to the words ‘quoniam tu solus sanctus, before a triumphant ‘amen’ with full orchestral backing. The ‘Amens’ here and in the Credo are both gems of choral writing.
The Credo’s formulaic theological language is often a challenge to set. Haydn delivers the first section as a unifying heartfelt declaration of faith, almost a military march with trumpets sounding out, hitting their high point on repetitions of the word ‘descendit’ (he descended to earth). The contrasting section about Christ’s life is slow affectionate story-telling in Anna Dennis’s solo, picked up quietly by the choir before the ominous brass which denotes the crucifixion. The final section ‘Et resurrexit’ rushes ahead towards the end of the creed, again speeding over the less interesting words, but singing them with conviction against a background of ardent and uplifting music. There’s another wonderful Amen with a trumpet part which ends in four rising notes.
The Sanctus is a glorious burst of sound and the Benedictus more considered, beginning with an orchestral interlude, then a soprano solo, the quartet and the chorus gradually building up to a resounding conclusion. The Agnus Dei begins with a reflective duet for the female soloists – a rare chance to hear the solo voice of Katie Bray, the mezzo - and ends with a choral extravaganza on dona nobis pacem, with rising voices and full orchestra seeming to celebrate victory as well as the peace which comes after it.
Another brilliant performance by the SCO Chorus brings this wide-ranging concert to a close. Next week Maxim Emelyanychev conducts Nicola Benedetti in Brahms’ Violin Concerto.
